Five Things Fic YKTTW Discussion

Note: I don't know how many usable examples there are of this trope, although it's everywhere. The description could use some work, too.

Some fics are structured as lists. Instead of following a straightforward narrative, they lay out a series of not necessarily related events. The most common type is the "five things" fic: "Five things Harry Potter brought to Hogwarts," or "Five Things Sokka and Katara left at the South Pole."

Often, a five things fic is also an Alternate Universe Fic, or even several alternate universes, positing several ways that an event could have, but didn't, occur: "Five ways Alice and Bob didn't get together," or "Five things that never happened to Carol."

Another common variation is to put a twist on the last item of the list:"Five ways Alice and Bob didn't get together, and one way they did," or, "Five things that never happened to Carol, and one thing that did."

Finally, a Five Things Fic does not have to have five things. It can have four, or ten, or thirty-eight items; five is just the most common number.

Examples:

The Harry Potter Five Things fic exchange includes such examples as "Four Letters that Got Delivered (and One that Didn't)" and "Charlie Weasley Smokes Four Cigarettes and Crushes One."

The Criminal Minds fic Marksman is a "five things that never happened" fic presented in a slightly atypical structure.

Replies: 16

Your reply:

Five hats means that five tropers think it is ready to publish.

You are saying that you think this draft is ready to be published. That means the description is not ambiguous,
it doesn't duplicate an existing trope, there are at least three examples, and the title makes sense.

Is that what you meant to do?

You are saying this draft has a ready-to-publish hat it does not deserve and you are taking it back.

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